Sorry, Dudes, My Bad
by otisreddings
Summary: Or: Roxanne Weasley Character Porn, Featuring Theodore Lupin And Some Blonde People. (Warning: Not actual porn! Chill out!)
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

It's Christmas Eve and the Burrow is full to bursting. Every unnecessary piece of furniture has been _Reducio_'d, moved upstairs, and replaced with all the tables in the house, around which the rather huge Weasley clan has gathered for dinner. The Christmas ham sits in the middle of it all like an oversized pink centerpiece. Percy spits out his pumpkin juice into a napkin and glares accusingly around the table; Fred and James suddenly become exceedingly interested in their respective dinners, while one-eared George pretends not to beam.

"It's _my_ turn," the younger Molly yells across the table to Hugo, but Hugo's not listening—he's too busy spooning the last bit of mashed potato onto his plate. Percy fishes a bit of Cockroach Cluster out of his juice and begins to wave it around his face, spluttering; Fred lets out an insuppressible gasp of mirth. Lily flicks a pea at Albus' face, which flushes with annoyance; the elder Molly tugs on Bill's now slightly graying ponytail, brandishing her wand.

Meanwhile, down the table, Victoire glares daggers at Teddy while whispering harshly in Dominique's ear. "I can't believe you told him to come," she hisses. "Look at him, just _sitting _there, like he didn't even do anything _wrong_—" But her words are lost in the growing racket.

"Why would you _do_ that, you know I love Gran's potatoes!"

"SHUT UP, NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR STUPID POTIONS PROJECT—"

"I would appreciate it if members of this family would stop trying to slip Cockroach Clusters into my food, as it's not enjoyable or particularly humorous!"

"Aren't you a little old to have this _dead animal_ hanging off the back of your head, dear?"

"It's not like I have the power to tell him whether or not he can show his face, Victoire, Uncle Harry invited him, and anyway, he _didn't_ do anything wrong—"

"How could you even say that?! Merlin, _Judas_, if you like him so much go sit on that end of the table with the _rejects_—"

"Please, Ronald, can you control yourself? It's a piece of ham, not a woman's naked body—"

"Because you're _fifteen years old_, that's why, and I don't want you sneaking Firewhiskey at Christmas dinner, thank you very much!"

"Suck my dick, bitch—"

"_LANGUAGE, DOMINIQUE!_"

"Where did Roxanne go?"

There's a slight pause in the melee while about half of the family members take in the empty spot where Roxanne had been sitting at the start of the meal. Her plate is cleared.

"I think she left."


	2. Chapter 1

THIS IS A CHAPTER

"Name and affliction, please."

_Nameandafflictionplease, nameandafflictionplease, nameandafflictionplease._ Roxanne's days pass excruciatingly slowly. She's well suited for desk labor only inasmuch as she is clever enough to complete the menial tasks assigned to her quickly and efficiently but still not nearly smart enough to aim any higher than where she is right now. She's slightly less well suited inasmuch as she has never bothered to try very hard at anything and does not intend to start anytime soon.

She's referred to as The Sullen Receptionist by some of the more regular patients, and there have been complaints of her simply glowering silently at persons requiring assistance until they decide to look for help elsewhere. _Our Welcome Witch will be happy to assist you_, says the sign behind the desk. It's been noted that she does not seem very happy at all. Roxanne can't be bothered to plaster a smile on her face, but some days she considers making an effort to be a little less aggressively unfriendly.

It is a job, after all, and the salary (however meager) allows her to afford a small place on her own, which is all she's ever claimed to want. She was able to hook up a Muggle television and exchanges bits of her paycheck for Muggle currency to order cable. She keeps her fridge stocked with potions to keep her awake and potions to put her to sleep and not much else. She's put most of the cabinets to use holding Firewhiskey and elfin wine and Muggle beer and though she's been living there for over a year the only family members who have ever visited are Victoire, who came once with Teddy seemingly only to decry the curtains, and Fred and James, who tailed her home from work one night—"to make sure," they said, "our nearest and dearest of kin isn't living secretly homeless." They bounced in merrily without waiting for an invitation and proceeded to rifle through drawers and cabinets and closets, drinking her alcohol and flipping through her telly and only stopping sometimes to bemoan her standard of living.

"I thought birds liked to stock their flats with stupid little knick-knacks and the like," James said, testing out some of Roxanne's beauty product on his own unruly black hair in front of a mirror.

"_I_ thought birds liked to stock their flats with, you know, _real food_," said Fred, who was munching distastefully on a stale crisp he'd found in an ancient box in the back of one of the kitchen drawers.

Roxanne said nothing for quite a while after that, and then said, "You can go now." The boys obliged, James pocketing the hair product with a wink and a grin and Fred threatening good-naturedly to owl their mum with Roxanne's address, though he never did. In fact, as far as she knows, neither Fred nor James has ever mentioned they've been to her flat at all, nor have they come round for a return visit.

She assumes that this makes her grateful, though if it does she doesn't feel it.

She likes being on her own. She always has. There was concern, at first—she wouldn't play with the other kids, wouldn't take an interest in reading or drawing or Quidditch, laughed rarely and cried even less—but despite her refusal to fully include herself in any family activities almost all the Weasleys (and the Potters, though they count as Weasleys, too) have grown to accept her completely. She finds this irritating, though she rarely feels at all irritated.

The Weasley grandchildren are all very attractive, and they all have distinct and unique personalities.

(Fred and James are devils; Fred eats a lot and tends to go with the flow, while James always pushes a little too hard and has an unhealthy obsession with his hair. Molly is talkative, and Lucy is studious. Rose is perfect. Albus is sort of a dick and he reads far too much. Louis whines a lot and likes to keep to himself; Dominique is politically-minded and somewhat militant. Lily thinks she's much more like her namesake than she is, and though shy Hugo needs her to speak for him he always seems to bring a different girl home every holiday. Victoire is, of course, a bitch.)

The Weasley grandchildren are all very attractive, and they all have distinct and unique personalities, except for Roxanne. Roxanne's distinguishing trait is that she lacks any semblance of a distinguishing trait. She is not brave, or smart, or kind. She has no sense of morality, instead choosing to operate solely by self-preservation—or maybe it's laziness. Whatever path yields the least amount of effort, saps the least amount of energy: that is the path Roxanne will take. There are certain rules to her universe, rules she has developed from watching her parents and grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts. She thinks concretely but lives in an abstract world. Definition has over the years become the enemy, and she has learned to avoid it as expertly as she can with such limited resources. It is a door that leads inside, where people feel free to form opinions and expectations that will eventually lead to resentment and pain. This is simple. This is logic. These are the rules, and to disregard them would be clumsy and foolish. These beliefs have become sacred to her, and though she is not intelligent enough to articulate them she has formed them just the same.

Some of the children were perfect, you see, and others were not. Fred was both, so it fell to Roxanne to be neither. This was nobody's fault—there was no childhood trauma, no early pigeonholing, no overdeveloped intelligence or underdeveloped social skills to explain away the problem. When she was a baby, she did not cry overly much, or read, or refuse to play with toys. She did a lot of sitting and a lot of staring and very little laughing, which did not seem to faze anybody in the slightest. "Roxanne's fine," everyone always said. "Just a little quiet, maybe, but completely fine."

Fine, fine, fine. Good. Well, even. James is a terror, Dominique's fighting again, Rose has just made top marks in first year Transfiguration, and Roxanne's fine. Some days she'd follow her cousins around but she never wanted to play their games, even when they asked, even when they needed a fourth or a sixth or a twelfth to make it even. This was the beginning of it—that slow erosion of the soul, that quiet wearing away of the mind. There could have been something, once, but she never nurtured it, never allowed those fledgling personality traits to grow. By the time that complete lack of commitment stopped feeling like freedom and started feeling like the middle of the ocean without a paddle it was already too late to learn to work with anything else. So Roxanne chose nothing, and became nothing.

Teddy would, of course, beg to differ. He would say that she's blunt, or dry, or funny—that she loves cheeseburgers and _Back To The Future_ and the early works of Kanye West and that every time she takes a bite of anything too sweet she makes a little face while she's chewing like she's hoping the sensation will be over as soon as possible. He would say she's a moral relativist, that she has problems with intimacy, that she's terrible at taking care of herself, that she wears combat boots because they make her feel like she can stomp on people's faces when they irritate her and that she's capable of far more than she thinks she is. This is all, of course, moot. Teddy doesn't count. He never has.

And he's wrong, at least about some things.

But it doesn't matter; she doesn't dwell on any of it very often. There's no point. Roxanne is, as always, fine. With where she is, with what she has, with who she knows. Fine, fine, fine, and who'd need to aim higher?

And so every day for hours on end she sits in her old-fashioned work robes at the front desk, chanting an endless refrain of nameandafflictionplease, nameandafflictionplease, nameandafflictionplease. She does not even look up from the doodles on her desk, today; she digs the quill point into the wood as she speaks.

"Name and affliction, please."

"I came to meet Pye for orientation, but you can feel free to check for lumps if you think it'd be necessary."

The quill stops scratching on the desk and Roxanne's eyes focus on the tip. She becomes very aware of her own breathing. The colors of her peripheral vision start to blur together until her entire world is contained inside the sound of her breath and the small tunnel that leads to the quill point on the desk in front of her, staining the wood with black ink, and the voice of the boy beyond it.

"Though I'm rather convinced the only thing I'm suffering from is clairvoyance. Tell me, did your family even bother to _pretend_ to be surprised that you've resigned yourself to menial desk labor, or were they all as blessed with foresight as I was?"

He's far away, though, too far away for her to hear properly or to see. Her eyes feel dry and she closes them, slowly, and the sound of her breathing gradually subsides until everything seems to grind to a halt. The noises of the hospital fade around her. She remembers.

_"Really, Malfoy?" She'd come to the library for a textbook, and found it in front of a familiar blonde head in the back. "That's the only copy left."_

_Scorpius doesn't look up from his notes. "That's unfortunate."_

_"You have your own textbook, wanker, I've seen you use it."_

_"I prefer this one."_

_"I need it."_

_"That's unfortunate."_

_"Give it to me," she says through clenched teeth, and his eyes finally meet hers._

_"Rather flimsy excuse to come talk to me, don't you think, Roxie?"_

_She's thrown off, but only for a second. "Your parents aren't going to love you any more if you get an O in Potions, Scorpius, so I don't see why you need to hog the textbook. And don't call me Roxie."_

_"And you won't fit in with the rest of your family any more if you finally find yourself bright enough to formulate an effective string of insults, so I'm honestly not miffed." He jumps into the fray immediately; she's continuously astounded at his ability to formulate cohesive, verbose sentences without allowing time to actually think of them. She's sure he makes them up in advance. "No need to be jealous of my success in class, at any rate; I'm sure your grades will make the world of minimum-wage careers your oyster. And you've had six years to learn that I'm not inclined to do what you say. Really, try for a little more than a dim glow sometimes, Roxie."_

_"Spot on, Malfoy. Roxanne is dumb. Amazing how you can still surprise me after all this time."_

_"It wouldn't need constant saying if it wasn't always so woefully apparent and so surprising in its consistency. Any other person would try to prove me wrong, you know."_

_He has her cornered. She stops for a second, switches gears. "It must be hard for you, being too much of an asshole to be a nice guy and too much of a pussy to be a badass. But hey, keep calling me dumb, if it'll make you happy. I'll take the high road here."_

_"Hate to break it to you, _Annie_, but the road you're walking matches your height of income: low. You gave up the high road the second you decided not to walk away." He leans back in his chair; he's giving her a choice, and she's not taking it. She sort of hates herself for a second._

_"If you're going to call me by stupid nicknames, you should at least choose one and stick with it."_

_"I'm taking them for test runs. Besides, now you've gone and shown it bothers you."_

_"I hate you with the fire of a thousand suns," she says flatly after a short pause. And she means it; she's not used to arguing like this. She's not used to anything, really—or rather, what she's used to is nothing. This is not nothing. This is infuriating._

_"Aw, so passionate. I didn't know you had it in you. Here: You're my very favorite to take the lowest road with, Roxanne Weasley, and having you to degrade is something I consider a blessing. I don't understand why you can't see that." He smirks, scanning her face proudly for the fruits of his labor. It takes all of her self-control to keep it blank._

_"Stop looking at me." He doesn't. "I could win right now, you know, by never talking to you again."_

_"On the other hand, winning would also be losing because, as much as you'd hate to admit it, you enjoy this little back-and-forth even more than I do."_

_And again, he's caught her. She fishes around. "You really, really need to get laid."_

_"Roxie, you're a brilliant target for humiliation, but my libido does not extend to you. I'm sorry. I hope this doesn't ruin things between us."_

_"As if I'd ever touch you." She finds her footing. "Get over this little 'it's like we're in a relationship' _thing_, Scorpius."_

_"Metaphor, I think, is the word you're looking for—"_

_"As much as you'd love to imagine me pining after you and pretending it's rage, I have plenty of options who aren't angry little Slytherin nerds with stupid hair and weasel faces."_

_"Weasel!" He looks and sounds delighted. "Of all the adjectives in all the world, _you_ call _me_ weaseley—"_

_She ignores this, continues as if he hadn't spoken. "You're not Merlin's gift to women, Malfoy, as much as you'd like to believe." This is good. She considers him. "Besides, I think your jacket is a women's cut."_

_ "And the claws come out." He seems genuinely pleased about it. "Glad the feeling's mutual. It'd mess up this cute little dynamic we have going if you went and developed feelings for me. I like to keep things simple, and there's a certain elegance in the purity of our loathing." He thinks he's done, but she makes sure he sees her looking at his jacket. There goes a tiny shred of composure. Point for Roxanne. "And it's _tailored_, unlike yours, which hides just about every asset you might have in minimum."_

_"That. That right there is why I hate you." She counts off on her fingers. "One, you're a pansy-ass little shit who gets his jackets tailored, and two, you go out of your way to judge the people who aren't also pansy-ass little shits who get their jackets tailored. And then you go out of your way _again _to talk me out of 'developing feelings' for you, which is a good thing, because it's not like I already explicitly told you I'd never touch you or anything. Who are you trying to impress, Scorpius? Because I don't know if you've noticed this, but I'm the only one here." She has him. He struggles not to gape. "Give. Me. The fucking. Book."_

_Silence for a moment. He turns back to his studies. "No. Feel free to add another reason to that list."_

_Roxanne leaves the library in uncharacteristically high spirits. Later, when Teddy asks her if she got the book she needed, she simply smirks. "What book?"_

"It says here that the Welcome Witch—that's you, in case you were lying all those times you told me you knew how to read—is supposed to be _happy_ to assist me."

The world restarts. She hears herself breathing and feels her eyes open. They slide up in Scorpius' direction. She blinks again and focuses on his right earlobe.

"Has St. Mungo's instated a program for hiring the mentally handicapped? No wonder they picked you for the job, think how many quotas you fill—"

She stands, refocuses on his teeth, which seconds before were bared in a grin but now seem to be disappearing. His brow, then. It's furrowed. She turns.

"Roxanne—" he begins, and she feels her feet propel her. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Door—watch your arm, there, now remember to push—and breathe. (In, out, in, out. Do you remember?) Left, right, pivot. Another door, pull this time, there is a click and the world goes dark.

It happens very quickly, as if even her body rejects the concept of strong emotion. She gasps for air, smashes her hand over her mouth and then her eyes and then one on each cheek. As her eyes adjust to the darkness of the hospital supply closet they also grow wet and blurry, and her hands shift again to wipe away tears that have yet to fully form, will never actually fall, haven't fallen for years and years and years. She gasps one more time, pulls her fingers through her hair, and then it's over. She clears her throat. She straightens her robes. She walks back to her desk, where Scorpius is standing, looking wary.

She takes her seat.

"Are you finally having a medical professional have a look down there, then? Or did _Engorgio_ work from home?" she asks, like everything is normal, like she just had to go to the supply closet to get an extra quill, like she didn't even see him there until now.

He doesn't miss a beat, as she knew he wouldn't. "Now, now, Roxanne, we both know that's not quite how it is. Though I do admire your dedication to the banter. Just like old times. It's just so very sweet, how you try."

Roxanne glares at him for an acceptable amount of time before tearing a memo form off of the pad on her desk. She fills in the appropriate names—_Scorpius Malfoy waiting for Augustus Pye at 1:46 in the afternoon, 1 December, regarding_—

She looks up. "What do you want?"

"A stable job, loads of gold, a beautiful woman's mouth on my—"

"I mean," Roxanne interjects flatly, "with _Pye_."

Scorpius grins, and Roxanne wants to hit him. Just like old times.

"I was told to report to his office this morning for orientation. I'm to give my name to the Welcome Witch and then wait for someone to come fetch me. He did warn me," he adds, his grin widening, "that the Welcome Witch on duty this morning, if he was thinking of the right one, may be something less than welcoming, though I must say you've been much more chipper than I remember. Pleased to see me, Weasley?"

"I hate you."

He taps his watch, feigns disappointment. "Ah, six minutes. I bet myself it would be less than five. Apparently I owe myself ten Galleons."

She finishes the memo instead of responding. _Scorpius Malfoy waiting for Augustus Pye at 1:46 in the afternoon, 1 December, regarding orientation. Collect at earliest convenience. Or earlier._

He reads over her shoulder. "You'll have to be a bit more polite, Roxanne, if you're going to be working under me."

"I answer to Pye, Malfoy, not the Junior Healers fresh from training."

He waggles his eyebrows. "That's not what I meant by _working under me_."

Roxanne sends off the memo without looking up at him. "How was France?" she asks after a pause. "Are you gay yet?"

"Not quite. Did you miss me?"

"Not quite."

He grins at that, and pulls over a chair from the waiting area so that he's sitting close to her, on the other side of the desk. Their knees bump under the table and her whole body stiffens.

"I'm staying at the Leaky Cauldron until I find a place in town," he says quietly, studying her. She clears her throat and averts her eyes.

"I don't care."

He's unfazed. "It's been three years, Roxanne. Could you really have forgotten? _I know you_. And I'll see you tonight." His hand snakes across the desktop towards hers but Pye enters before they can touch.

"Mr. Malfoy. So sorry to keep you waiting. I hope our Roxanne's been civil."

"More than civil," Scorpius says as he stands, flashing a wicked grin in Roxanne's direction. "An absolute ray of sunshine. Shall we?"

Pye gapes as Scorpius ushers him toward the lifts. Roxanne waits for the doors to close before letting her head hit the desk. It stays there for the rest of the day, not moving as she lazily waves patients and guests along, her _nameandafflictionplease_s muffled by the desktop and her hair.


	3. Chapter 2

IDK LET'S MAKE THIS ANOTHER CHAPTER

_"Did you do your career meeting with Longbottom yet?"_

_He's still on the floor, lazy, wearing only his boxers and an almost earnest little smirk. She's on her feet, pulling on her jeans, hopping in place as she yanks them up. "Yeah."_

_This is a game that they've been playing all year; he likes it, likes worming a response out of her. His smirk turns into a grin. "Did he straight-out tell you that you had no prospects, or…?"_

_"Maybe I haven't been clear," she says, buttoning up her pants, unwilling to meet his eye. "I don't actually feel inclined to _talk _to you, Malfoy. Ever."_

_"What, did I do something wrong?" He sits up, pleased with her foul mood, playing along. "Because if the noises that just came out of you were any indication I'd say I did a bang-up job down there—"_

_"Do you think we're friends now?" She's not playing around, but her words fall a little flat considering how just the day before they'd had a meal together in the kitchens. He'd smeared cake on her face. She'd laughed about it. "Merlin forbid I mislead you, Malfoy. We're not friends. This is just… stress relief."_

_His smirk is infuriating, really. "Happy to relieve."_

_She finishes buttoning up her shirt and turns to exit the caved-in passageway, but stops partway through. Her words are dark. "Congratulations, by the way."_

_"Please, Roxanne, you're hot but you're not that—"_

_"On your acceptance, I mean. That three-year program. You'll do well in France. Good to get out of the country, anyway. Everyone here hates you, might as well ship out, am I right?"_

_That shuts him up for a minute, as it should. She knows he only told one person, but that person was Albus, who relayed the information almost immediately afterwards to Roxanne with the air of commenting on the weather. Neither Roxanne nor Scorpius had told anybody about their little excursions, but it wasn't as though they weren't more than a little obvious. He'd broken up with his girlfriend, she'd started avoiding boys at parties, and the bickering had reached entirely new levels, even for such weathered, longtime foes as they were. Not to mention the way they'd disappear after class, usually still fighting, and duck into empty classrooms or secret passageways and then walk out with identical and rather inappropriate grins—also still fighting, of course, as they never really stopped. It was usually simple stuff, though; she's a bitch, he's a prick, she's a moron and no one will ever accept him. This, though, is far from simple. This is war._

_"Thanks," he says after a short pause. "I haven't decided if I'm going yet—"_

_"—but you should," she cuts in, her voice dangerously casual. "It's not like you've got anything keeping you here. Follow your dreams and all that. It's really almost brave of you."_

_"Roxanne—"_

_"What, do you want me to beg you to stay?" She clasps her hands in front of her chest, mocks pleading. "_Please_, Scorpius, don't leave me, I'm _ever _so alone—"_

_"Spot on, Roxanne. You should go into acting." He's getting a little tired of her games—she can see it, she knows him better than anyone, but she refuses to acknowledge it. She pushes harder._

_"You're pathetic."_

_"You're a bitch."_

_"What else is new?" She spins around, this time intent on leaving. It was a bad idea to even bring it up. The conversation is approaching dangerous territory._

_"Do you want me to say it?" he calls out after her, and she pauses despite herself. "Is that what you want, Roxanne? Are you so bloody insecure that you need to hear the actual words before you have a serious conversation with me?"_

_She doesn't like where this is going but her feet won't cooperate so she just stands there, frozen, not saying a word. Her ears start to ring slightly._

_"You're in love with me."_

_"No, I'm not." The words come out immediately, almost childishly, a knee-jerk reaction. She hears him scoff behind her._

_"And I'm in love with you."_

_"No," she says, even quicker this time. "You're not."_

_All quiet from behind and for one blazing moment of glory she thinks he was just joking, or maybe he's just rethought it, or maybe the ground has opened and one or both of them have been swallowed by Hell, but then she feels him grab her hand and spin her around to face him. She's always been tall but he suddenly looms. "Prove it."_

_For a minute they stand there, looking at each other. She wants nothing more than to get out of there, to never see this stupid boy again. "Let me go."_

_"I don't think I will, actually—"_

_So she yanks at her arm but he's holding it tight, too tight, and it won't budge. She pummels him with her free hand. "You're nothing! Do you want to know what I feel for you, Malfoy? Nothing. You're just more _nothing _in a long line of _nothing _and that's _it_." He laughs a little—she's never been able to throw a proper punch—and leans in as if to kiss her, but she shrinks back, eyes wild and a little glassy. This seems to affect him more than her words did and his grip slackens a little. She seizes the opportunity and slips away. "Have a wonderful time in France," she says venomously, and then she's gone. She steadfastly avoids him for the next week and during graduation, and then he's gone, too, just like that. War over. She supposes that she's won, but the victory is inexplicably hollow._

She sees him just once more before her shift is over. She goes back into the supply closet to pick up a fresh memo pad and when she slips out he's there. Pye is speaking to him, giving him a tour of the hospital, but he openly stares at her as she walks back towards the lobby. It takes a majority her considerable willpower not to look back.

When he left, she did not cry, or even feel particularly sad. Instead she switched off, drifted out of herself; she'd always been burrowed deep inside but after graduation she slipped away completely. She lived at home but spent most nights on Teddy's couch, or sometimes Fred's if Victoire was over. She did not look for employment, like Rose did at the Ministry, or apply to programs to further her studies, like Albus. She hadn't spoken to anybody about what had happened, not even Teddy, but at least some of the family knew something was wrong. She looked unhealthy, they would say. She looked like a corpse. She did not sleep enough, or eat enough. She didn't do much of anything at all.

It wasn't until about eight months later, when Teddy and Victoire announced their second engagement (their first had been a year or so earlier, and had lasted about six days), that she was able to snap out of whatever it was she was in. She was sitting on Teddy's couch when he came in through the door, flushed from the cold outside, a wide white grin splitting open his thin face. He'd just asked her, just like that, and this time they were going to make it work—this time things would be different. He asked Roxanne to be his best man, and she said, "Whatever," but they both knew she meant yes.

Perhaps it was just the jolt she needed—a wake-up call, a reminder that sometimes it's better to let people go. Teddy clings to Victoire because he does not understand how to live a life without her. His face that day when he ran into the flat, out of breath from running up the stairs because the lift was always broken, knowing that Roxanne would be just where he left her on the couch eating his crisps and watching his telly—that is not a look she ever wants to sport.

On the other hand, perhaps not. Perhaps Roxanne and Teddy—the misfits, the outsiders, the secret mismatched club of two—are linked together too closely to be healthy. Perhaps they are bound in such a way that when one moves forward, so does the other, and when one flounders, the other finds himself falling short. He was kind to her—_specifically_ kind, to _her_—when she was first learning what it meant to be overlooked. And her very ability to be overlooked, that proclivity for fading into the background, that propensity towards doing nothing and saying nothing and becoming nothing, was something that he, who has always stuck out in a crowd, would have killed for. So when he asked his girlfriend to become his wife, Roxanne moved ahead, too, in parallel to him—a trade-off, a mutual nudge in the general forward direction. More freedom for her, less for him, but growth for each.

So it is the most natural thing in the world, when her shift ends at five o'clock and she exits the hospital, for her feet to take her not to her own flat or to the Leaky Cauldron but to Teddy's, Teddy's where the door is always open and when it's not she has an extra key, where there's usually food and always booze, where she can lie down on the couch and make him read his papers to her until she falls asleep. The door is unlocked when she arrives, and instead of exploring the apartment for Teddy she goes straight to the kitchen and puts a kettle on for tea. She's sitting on the counter next to the stove when he walks in, an ink-smudged bit of parchment in front of his nose and a look of consternation on his face.

"Does this make sense?" he asks without looking up. "_The third exception to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration states, of course, that intentional curse damage cannot be reversed—that is, that body parts cursed off or disfigured by Dark Magic cannot be regrown or corrected. The research of Archemedia Thrace, however, combined with some of the musings of former Hogwarts Headmistress and Transfiguration Professor Minerva McGonagall, could be interpreted to posit that cursed body parts can be cultivated independently of the sufferer in question and then reattached using a combination of Transfiguration and Muggle medicine, which, though superstitiously shunned in most magical circles, has made significant enough progress in the past hundred years that ignoring it is no longer wise._"

Roxanne blinks. "No."

"Were you listening?"

"No."

The kettle whistles, and he puts the parchment down, reaching for two large mugs from a top shelf. He pours a bit of milk and sugar in one, just milk in the other, and then hands them off to Roxanne, who hops off the counter to fix the tea. They maneuver around each other in the small kitchen area the same way they have a hundred times before. They've moved beyond 'excuse me,' or 'hello.'

"You're a terrible excuse for a best friend," he says, but his tone is warm and he's grinning.

"Not my fault your job's so boring," Roxanne replies with a shrug. "A bloke came in to _my_ job today with great purple oozing sores that _sparkled_, Ted, what has _yours _done lately?"

He puffs out his chest unconsciously—a silly image, as there's not much chest to puff out. Teddy is almost as thin as Roxanne, and only a bit taller. "Actually," he says, "_Transfiguration Today_ owled me asking if I'm interested in writing a regular feature for them. Weekly, for a year." He reaches behind him and brandishes the letter like a child showing his mother his very first O. Roxanne duly accepts and scans it while she pours the tea.

"_'Interesting… insightful… outstrip your peers in depth of thought by miles…'_ Gosh, Teddy, it looks like they'll propose any day now." She grins. "_'You are quickly becoming a household name around Transfiguration enthusiasts and we would like to aid your propulsion into the highest ranks of academia.'_ Wow."

"I know," he says, hopping a little in place.

"Congratulations, Ted," she says warmly, and she means it. She offers him the letter again, and his grin fades a little.

"What else?"

"Er… you're a true, er, testament to…?"

"No, no." He waves his hand around his head like he's shooing off a particularly insistent gnat. "At work. What else happened to you at work today?"

She stops, blinks, forces herself to maintain eye contact. "Nothing. Sparkly purple oozing sores, I told you. Oh, and that one guy came in all orange again, I don't know what he's doing, fifth time this week—"

"Roxie." He's looking at the paper in her hand. It's shaking. She shoves it at him.

"Will you just take it? It's nothing. I forgot to have lunch today, go get me a biscuit." He reclaims his letter and she turns to fuss with the tea.

He doesn't press it, as she knows he won't. It's clear, however, that he isn't fooled, and he searches for the biscuits with a sour face. The silence stretches out between them, as it always does in this situation. She's going to tell him, infuriating as it is, as little as she wants to. She always does. She waits until he's halfway in the bottom cabinet to do it, though.

"Malfoy's back."

There's a _crack_ as Teddy hits his head on the cabinet. Roxanne stifles a cackle.

"Just visiting or back indefinitely?" His words are muffled by the cabinet and his pain. She shrugs.

"I don't know. The second one. He's working at St. Mungo's now."

Teddy emerges, one hand clutching the half-empty box of biscuits, the other on the back of his head, where he smacked it on the cabinet. He studies her. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay. I'm always okay. How's your head?"

"It's fine." He puts the biscuits down and takes a step toward her. "Rox—"

She closes the distance between them before he has a chance to finish, not even bothering to hug him properly. Instead, she just sort of _flops_ forward, her face pressed into his chest, him supporting pretty much her whole weight. Her words are muffled by his wool jumper.

"Shut up."

He presses a cheek to the top of her head and pats her back a little. She allows this, though she usually wouldn't and knows she shouldn't. Roxanne is not built for physical comfort; she has never been particularly accustomed to it. It does not come easily.

After about a minute, she resurfaces. "Biscuits," she says hoarsely, and then turns to pick up the tea. She relocates to the living room without saying anything.

He follows her. "I owled Harry about the job. And Gran, and Molly. They all want me at the Burrow tonight for dinner. You're coming."

She plops down on the couch, puts her boots up on his coffee table, pinches the bridge of her nose. "If I'd known _that_ I would've gone straight home after work and not bothered with you at all."

"No, you wouldn't have." He offers her a biscuit and she takes it, glaring at him.

"I don't want to go."

"Fred'll be there, and James. I think your mum and dad might stop by."

"All the more reason."

"Rose and Albus?"

She doesn't even dignify that with a response. He shrugs. "Okay, it was a long shot. Well, I don't think Victoire's going, you'll like that."

She purses her lips, considers this. "Fine. I'll go. To _support you_."

"Great!" His face lights up. "We're leaving in five minutes, so finish your tea and maybe run a brush through your hair or something. I'll be right back, I have to change."

He's sprinting through his bedroom door almost before she has a chance to yell, "I hate you!"

"No, you don't!" comes the muffled reply from the next room.

And she doesn't.


	4. Chapter 3

MAYBE THIS IS THE THIRD CHAPTER IDK

She hears the din from the Burrow the moment she Apparates into its cluttered yard; the soft _pop_ of Teddy Apparating beside her is almost lost in it. Laughter, and music (Celestina Warbeck—is it that close to Christmas already?), and something else, too, something with an edge: the sound of at least ten friendly voices all vying to be heard over one another. This is as familiar a sound to Roxanne as that of her own breathing. This is the sound of home.

There is another home, too, of course—a home cluttered with half-finished gag products, a home that always smells vaguely of gunpowder and broom polish, much quieter except for the occasional _bang_ of an experiment gone wrong or the more frequent fury of one Angelina Johnson-Weasley, but it's not quite the same. The Burrow is the center of the universe, as far as Roxanne's family is concerned. It is where they meet for holidays and celebrations and the yearly memorial event for lost friends. It is where they go when things get hard. Nearly every grandchild has had an extended stay here—including Teddy, of course, and except for Roxanne. It's a halfway house and a meeting point.

They go in through the back and are immediately accosted with the smell of cooking dinner. Rose is in the kitchen with Molly (the elder; the younger's still at Hogwarts with her sister), getting pointers on the best way to make a carrot chop itself. A ladle circles lazily around a pot of stew on the stove. She lights up when they come in and the knife across the room drops heavily from its position in midair, landing neatly wedged in the cutting board. Molly tuts, and then remembers herself.

"Welcome, welcome, dears," she says, offering them each bone-crushing hugs. Roxanne returns hers rather gingerly, as always. "Everybody's in the sitting room. Unless the man of the hour would like to stay and help with dinner?"

"Oh, Gran, don't—you know what happened last time, when he ruined Uncle Percy's birthday cake," Rose chimes in affectionately. She's beautiful as ever; a perfect mixture of her mum's wild hair and her father's big blue eyes. "Maybe he should stick to being smarter than the rest of us and not worry about being a good cook, too."

"I don't know about 'smarter than the rest of us,' Rosie. I hear pretty soon you'll be running the whole Magical Law Enforcement branch, at the rate you're going," Teddy counters, and Rose beams.

"Please. I'm just a peon."

Molly waves this off. "A peon at twenty is still quite the achievement, dear. And you're the peon in charge of the rest of the peons."

"I suppose. I just wish I could do more. We had a repeat offender come in the other day, fresh out of Azkaban for a crime he claims he didn't commit, and the department is so busy with the fallout from the raid last week we had to tell him to build his own case and hope for the best. Someone had to help him out the door, he was shaking so bad…"

"You're doing what you love, dear, and that's what matters. You're making a difference, even if it's a small one, and soon you'll be changing the world just like your parents. I'm sure of it."

"Thanks, Gran."

Roxanne watches all of this impassively. Her face is a mask. Her ears ring slightly.

She does not understand how it comes so easily to some people. For someone like her, someone who has never in her life really hoped for or wanted anything, this conversation reads like a foreign language. She does not know how she feels except that she feels distinctly out of place.

Teddy leans over and bumps shoulders with her, bringing her back to earth. "We'd better go say hello to Harry before he sends out a search party."

"Of course," Molly says, shooing them away. "Out, out, before the soup burns just looking at you."

They follow the sound of music and voices into the sitting room, where about ten people are grouped together, crammed on couches and little armchairs, chatting loudly. They explode at the sight of Teddy walking through the door, jumping to their feet, hollering their congratulations.

Fred and James get to him first, and each grabs one of his hands and starts pumping it furiously. "Absolutely spiffing, man—quite an achievement—always knew you had it in you," they say solemnly, and Roxanne spots her father beaming at them from farther back in the crowd.

They're finally scared away from Teddy by the glare of his grandmother Andromeda, who has, like her grandson, been all but legally adopted by the Weasley family. She hugs him warmly and kisses him on both cheeks. "My boy," she says softly, and there are tears in her eyes. "Your father would be so proud."

"Thanks, Gran," Teddy murmurs, and then Andromeda steps aside to allow tall, thin, almost completely bald Arthur to move in and wring his hand. His smile takes up half of his thin face.

After Arthur comes Lily, who does not hug Teddy so much as tackle him, squealing her congratulations so loudly Rose pokes her head out of the kitchen to make sure no one is being murdered. Lily's enthusiasm is countered, as always, by Albus, who saunters up cool-as-you-please to give Teddy a halfhearted clap on the shoulder before shuffling back to his spot by the fire to brood over a book. His mother shoots him a glare before offering her own congratulations to Teddy, who by this point looks a little dazed. One-eared George, however, leans in conspiratorially to say, "Happy as I am for you, I feel like I need to be honest—I'm mostly here because Ange is in Scotland running the entire Quidditch league and I heard Molly was cooking," which seems to bring Teddy right back down to earth, laughing, just in time for Harry to step forward. They embrace each other warmly.

Throughout all of this Roxanne hovers by the door, watching Teddy. As always, he handles this extraordinary level of input fairly well—a little awkwardly, perhaps, but his smile is easy and his affection is genuine. This is as much his home, his family, as any Weasley's. More, in fact, than some.

More than her, at least. She'd be lying if she said she didn't love these people, but something about having them all in one room, about all these hugs and all this noise, makes her want to slip out before she's noticed. She reckons she's got about two more minutes before she's spotted. Teddy might be irritated with her for leaving, but he'll understand and he'll get over it. He usually does. Besides, he knows she loves him, and he knows she's proud—she doesn't need to be at a stupid dinner to prove it.

Roxanne turns towards the door and finds her field of vision blocked by two grinning faces. She lets out a little groan.

"Is it really her?" Fred asks, eyes shining with mock curiosity. "It can't really be her. She hates it here."

"Looks real," James says, leaning in closer. Fred pokes her nose.

"Feels real, too."

"I thought she might be Teddy's Patronus."

"No—Teddy's Patronus is Victoire."

James shakes his head. "Vic's too much of a bitch to be a Patronus. Maybe a Boggart."

"Maybe Vic is what's under the Dementor's hood."

"What do you think, Roxanne? Does Teddy seem more soulless when he's been kissing Victoire?"

Roxanne blinks. "Uh…"

"Roxie!" Lily's voice, from behind. Roxanne spins around and braces herself against a side table. Lily pounces. "You're so sneaky, girl, I almost didn't see you at all! How have you been? How's work? How's life? Found yourself a man yet?"

"Er." By the time Roxanne extracts herself from Lily's viselike embrace, the rest of the room is already forming another miniature receiving line. Her greetings are stiff and perfunctory, but nobody seems to mind in the slightest—with one exception.

"Try to look a little less miserable, honey," Andromeda says when it's her turn to say hello. "You're hunching your shoulders again. Just close your eyes and it'll all be over soon." Roxanne halfheartedly attempts a grin, and Andromeda shakes her head a little before pulling her into a brief hug. She catches Teddy's eye over his grandmother's shoulder and he beams.

Albus doesn't get up to say hello, but he openly stares at her over the pages of his book. When the hubbub dies down, Roxanne goes to sit by him, frowning.

"Have you seen him yet?" he says brusquely, glancing back down at his reading.

"Yeah."

"We were going to get drinks later, but Rose dragged me to this instead."

She shrugs, and he flips a page. There's a short pause.

"He's been asking about you," Albus says, without looking up. "All week. Since he's been back. He wanted to know if you were seeing anybody."

Another pause. She knows he expects her to say something but she honestly can't think of a single response.

"I told him not to ask stupid questions."

Now he looks up, as if to gauge a reaction, and Roxanne avoids his gaze. She knows what he's implying. It's what everybody always implies. That she's cold and unresponsive and directionless. That any physical advantages she might have in minimum are overshadowed by her skeletal frame and sunken eyes and knotty hair, all evidence of how poorly she takes care of herself. That the thought of her in a relationship—sharing dreams, holding hands, relying on somebody and allowing them to rely on her—is frankly laughable.

She can't argue with this, and doesn't particularly care to. It's all true, anyway, and she doesn't think much of it being a problem. She's fine.

"Okay," she says, and Albus stares at her for another moment before turning back to his book. She gets up without another word and walks back into the fray, where Teddy grabs her elbow and holds it in place next to him like he knows she'll flee first chance she gets.

She can't argue with that, either.

It isn't until after dinner that she gets a moment alone, but by this point she's given up all hope of running. She's outside, sitting on the back steps, in the very same place she spent most of her childhood sitting, picking at the very same peeling white paint on the underside of the banister. The Burrow has grown in the generation since the war—new bedrooms, another story, a proper dining room big enough to seat the whole family—but the place retains the slight sense of shabbiness it's always had. Molly has the children clean obsessively before any big event, but Roxanne always ducks out, partly because (duh) she doesn't _do_ things, but partly because she has the distinct sense that the Burrow will never really be clean. The floors will always be a little scuffed, the paint will always bubble in the corners, and the shelves and tables will always be cluttered with useless knick-knacks and stray newspaper clippings. Even the newest rooms look just as old as the oldest ones. She wonders if maybe the house just likes it like this.

Now would, of course, be an excellent time to go, but Teddy's keeping a close watch on her through the window, and she can't quite bring herself to Apparate away just yet. Anyway, she likes it out here, picking at the paint with one hand and running the other over the gooseflesh on her bare upper arm. Dinner was hot and loud and oppressive, and out here in the cold she finds that the muffled voices coming from inside are all the company she really needs.

"Your mum'll be furious when she gets home."

The voice comes from behind her, and Roxanne doesn't turn, or respond. This does nothing to deter her father, who has known her all her life and therefore has learned not to take her cold shoulder act personally. He sits beside her and follows her gaze out towards the hedges.

"She was going to come back early from Scotland, but we all told her not to bother. 'Course, no one dreamed you'd make an appearance, even for Ted."

"I'm a real woman of mystery," she mumbles, shrugging a little. George chuckles.

"How's the job?"

"Fine."

"The flat?"

"Fine."

"The telly?"

"Fine."

"You're terrible." He's not looking at her like she's terrible, however. He's looking at her like she's the best thing since sliced bread. This is who George Weasley is as a father—always staring gobsmacked at his children, like he can't believe they're really real and really his and really as fantastic as they are. Even if they're Roxanne.

"Mum'll see me at Christmas," she says. Any other conversation and she would have let it die, but something about her father makes her want to accommodate him. The fact that he can know her as well as he does and still look at her the way he does somehow makes him worth the effort of a real conversation.

The only other person she feels this way about is Teddy.

"She will. I won't, though. Unless I can get Freddie to go to Germany for me." Roxanne glances over at her father, and he shrugs. "There's a big deal going down over there, if I can convince the Lenschers to let me buy out their shop."

"Freddie'll never go, not on Christmas." Fred loves Christmas—decks himself out in sweaters, sings carols in a boisterous bass, watches Rose and Lily make cookies and then stuffs his face with them, though he always leaves a few for Father Christmas by the fire. Even now. At twenty two.

"I know." George sighs lightly. "No chance you'll go, right? Take up the mantle? You'd be a crack businesswoman."

"Sure. Me in a joke shop." She tries to picture it. She can't.

Clearly her father can, however, because he laughs. "That'd be the biggest joke of them all. Your sour puss under the Wheezes sign. I wasn't kidding, though, Roxie—if you ever want to get out of the medical field—"

The medical field, he says. Like she's a doctor.

" Your mum's always telling me not to push you, blah blah, but you'd intimidate the hell out of clients and you've always had a head for numbers, even when you were a kid—"

She's not listening anymore, and he knows it, so he trails off without much ceremony or resentment and the two of them sit in silence for a while, shoulder to shoulder (she's been taller than her father since she was fifteen, of course, but as always her terrible posture acts as the great equalizer, bringing them closer to the same level). After a minute or so, George turns to look at her, and his face is unreadable.

"You're all right, yeah?"

The question catches her off guard—he sounds so concerned, so unsure—and for one insane moment she's nearly overcome with an urge to laugh wildly, or maybe flop over onto his chest like a toddler, but thankfully a sudden commotion from inside snaps her back to her senses. "I'm always all right," she says flatly (if a little hoarsely), and stands up to see what the fuss is about before he has a chance to prod her further.

She thinks she probably knows before she actually knows—either way, she's not at all surprised when she sees all that blonde hair so elegantly gathered at the nape of a long, graceful neck. She's never that surprised when Victoire shows up; she's never much of anything, really. Teddy, though, looks like someone just threw a drink in his face. (Which, come to think of it, is how his last encounter with Victoire ended, so the reaction seems rather appropriate.) Roxanne watches clinically as Victoire's back straightens a little, her head jerking almost imperceptibly towards the kitchen door, and as Teddy receives the message about a millisecond later than a normal human would and slips into the kitchen to wait for her.

"I'm bored," she says after a moment, and turns to her father. "Tell them—whatever. I'm going home. Bye."

"Abrupt," George whines affectionately, but Roxanne's already worked the long legs her mother gave her to stride about ten feet away before he even has time to finish the word. She turns back around, pulls her cheeks into what she thinks probably somewhat will resemble a smile, and then turns on her heel and disappears.

It's not her apartment. She means to go there, should have gone there, but at the last moment another location pops into her head quite uninvited and she finds herself in an alley by the Leaky Cauldron. It's much louder here than it was outside the Burrow; the light is yellower, too, and dirtier, almost more offensive. She's instantly and infinitely more comfortable in her own skin under light like this. It's the kind of light that hovers just above the surface, completely ignoring the near-black sky above; it's a stupid light. Doesn't know when to quit. Or already has.

Roxanne's feet lead her out towards the front and for the second time today she peers through a window and spies the back of a familiar blonde head. He's hunched over the bar, shoulder blades pressing through the back of his shirt, probably nursing a Firewhiskey and moping about something stupid. He always did like to brood, Scorpius; she used to imagine he'd installed a fainting couch in the Slytherin common room for maximum languishing potential.

For a moment—a very short, stupid moment—she considers going in, sitting next to him at the bar, ordering a drink of her own. She's not sure why she considers this, but she does. But then she sees him start to turn, as if she'd tapped on the glass—like he knows she's there, like he _feels_ her or something (though he probably just saw her reflection in the grimy mirror behind the bar, Roxanne, let's not get ahead of ourselves here)—and she snaps back to reality immediately, turning away from the window and setting herself at a brisk pace towards very far away from here.

She's a block away when he grabs her elbow, and she turns to face him. He's flushed, disheveled, breathing hard—she thinks he might have run to catch up with her. They stare at each other for a minute, his hand still on her arm, his eyes boring into hers. She's aware again of her own breathing as his slows down to a steadier pace. For the first time in the history of their relationship, it seems that neither of them have anything to say to one another; finally it's Roxanne that breaks the silence, utilizing the only word she can manage to dredge out of her vocabulary.

"Yeah?"

The sound of her voice seems to snap him back into himself, but his hand stays on her arm. "You stopped by and didn't even say hello. Rude."

"Thought I might fancy a drink. Didn't like the crowd."

She starts to walk again, and he falls into step with her almost automatically. "Does that make you feel better?"

"What?"

"Pretending. Playing it like we don't know each other perfectly well."

She stops again, then walks again. Can't make up her mind. Doesn't particularly care to. "Three years is a long time," she says slowly. "People change."

"Not you and me," he counters, and she speeds up. He lopes alongside her, unbothered.

"There is no 'you and me,' Malfoy."

"You say that—and yet, you came." She stops short again. He stops, too, almost simultaneously, as if this were choreographed earlier—stop here, start again, stop again, kick-ball-change. The street is getting crowded; Muggles stumble around them clumsily, like they're two statues planted firmly in the center of a freeway. She blinks.

"I didn't go in," she manages to spit out—childishly, churlishly, like she could end the statement naturally by calling him a nincompoop. He grins.

"You didn't have to. You saw me, I saw you. You knew I'd follow you out. You never take any extra steps, Roxanne, especially not ones that could be used against you. World's laziest self-preservationist. Not coming in was your attempt to reclaim the power you gave up by showing your face at all."

She walks. He walks. "Put of bit of thought into that, have you?"

"Didn't need to. I understand you, remember?"

"You know, you'd think a bloke would get tired of saying that by now."

"I'd think a bird would get tired of pretending not to hear it."

She glares at him and he grins innocuously back, seemingly content to just walk together in silence. She tries to hold this up for more than a minute, but can't—not with him just _looking _at her like that, watching her with that big fat shit-eating grin. "So this—"

She stops, shakes her head, starts again. "Aren't you giving up this so-called 'power' or whatever by following me around like this?"

"I'm confident I'll regain it presently." She gapes again, and he places a comforting hand on her forearm. "That means I feel good about the chances of you doing something very soon to make you look very stupid."

She jerks her arm away. "Eat shit, Malfoy."

"As eloquent as she is lovely. It's a wonder you're still single."

Somehow she finds herself stopped in front of the door to her building; how they arrived here she hasn't a clue. She takes a step toward him. "Not single. I've got a boyfriend. He's a professional duelist, weighs two hundred pounds, solid muscle—"

He steps in now towards her. "You tell him about me?"

"Nothing worth telling," she murmurs, and they kiss.

They approach each other now as they have their whole lives—with calculated aggression, with a distinctly guarded sort of vulnerability. One of her hands curls in between them, pulling on his tie, tugging him closer; the other is held up flat against his chest, almost pushing him away. He's got his fingers digging into the small of her back and the side of her head, positioning her, holding her in place and moving her to his liking. He breaks away to breathe small words into her ear, but she does not want to hear them, so she extracts herself and fumbles with the key in the lock. He comes up behind her, spins her around, smashes his lips against her lips. The door opens behind them with a soft click and they stumble through, still connected at the hands, at the lips, at the hips and nose and thighs. She leads them up the stairs and through the door into her flat—he pauses to comment on the Spartan conditions, probably, or the postage stamp size, but she doesn't give him the chance.


End file.
